


SPARTAN-B240

by eggstasy



Series: Halo 5 RvB [1]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms, Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Halo 5 AU, Halo 5 knowledge not necessary, M/M, but would probably help it make more sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pvt. Lavernius Tucker, killed by a landmine in an Insurrectionist skirmish.  Construct serial number TKR-24526 still identifies by the moniker 'Tucker,' and retains much of the host's distasteful personality.  SPARTAN-B240 has a service record with more red marks than text and a history of paranoia and violence all the way back to his pre-service childhood.</p><p>Somehow, the two of them manage to get on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SPARTAN-B240

Right out of the oven, Tucker gets benched. He has just enough time to 'wake up,' get debriefed, have some of his standard protocol written and installed and then he's being picked up for transport and has to content himself with being fucking bored and confused in a storage unit without any outside stimulation for what feels like decades.

He thinks he remembers some stuff from before. Or he remembers some stuff from his host brain; they tried to make that really clear, tried to let him know that whatever he remembers, that's not him. Apparently some other AI have trouble separating who they were from who they are, but Tucker can see why. He remembers his kid's face, or Private First Class Lavernius Tucker's kid's face.

He wonders if the kid has anyone besides his dad. He doesn't remember that much. He hopes so, but then again he doesn't know how old the brain that made him is anyway. The kid could be twenty by now. Or dead.

After decades of thinking about his kid and wondering how he was supposed to have a shitton of sex without a body (because that also feels like a pretty necessary aspect of his personality, the having sex thing), Tucker gets plunked into a terminal and is looking up at the tired, beleaguered face of a man who looks a lot older than he probably is. Tucker idly throws out a couple feelers and finds out the guy is only barely in his thirties. Yeah, he looks like he's in his forties. But that's normal for the war.

He's got bottle blond hair on the top and graying black on the sides, he's got about a trillion freckles and only half that many scars.  He's in SPARTAN III armor, which is odd.  Tucker didn't think SPARTAN III's got AI partners very often, mostly because they were the redheaded stepchildren of the SPARTAN program.  Especially since the IVs have come along and perform better than ever.

"Yo," is what Tucker says, and lifts a hand.

The SPARTAN blinks down at him.  "Uh, hi.  Look, we're in an emergency situation, so I'm going to have to implant you to transport you to safety.  It's against protocol but we're out of options here."

"Is this emergency situation why I can't access onboard sensors?" Tucker asks, making his avatar scratch its arm.  Humans get more at ease when the arbitrary holographic avatars behave in arbitrary human ways.  Something about empathy or whatever whatever.

"You could say that."  The soldier slots a crystal storage chip into the pedestal and Tucker starts dumping his nonvital files into it on reflex.

"Hey dude, before I get inside of you, what's your name?  Kinda my policy."  Tucker folds his little arms and stares up at the SPARTAN.  He looks cagey.  He's cryptic.  This is probably not gonna work out well, but if he's just a pack mule then Tucker doesn't have to get too cozy.

The SPARTAN looks surprised that he even asked.  Maybe he was expecting a dumber computer.  Most people do, if they haven't run into any smart AI before.  "SPARTAN-B240," he says after a moment.

"Okay, _I_ have a serial number name.  Give me something real or I'm not going anywhere with you.  Stranger danger and all that."

Mr. B240 glances hurriedly over his shoulder before huffing out a sigh.  "Washington, okay?  Corporal David Washington, and I am a SPARTAN.  Now let's get you out of here."

"Was that so hard?  You big baby."  Tucker dumps the rest of himself into the storage chip and his avatar fizzes out into a trickle of light.  There's a brief moment of terrifying emptiness before there's an earth-rattling click and suddenly he's inside Corporal David Washington, SPARTAN-B240's head.  His paranoid, loss-riddled head.  Whew boy.

He doesn't go digging around in Washington's recent memory because there be dragons (and because it's sort of difficult to do, this is his first rodeo inside another person all right), so instead he just stretches himself out as far as he can into both Washington's wetware and the suit's hardware to give himself space.  He pulls up the biofeed to monitor his mule's vitals (good, but the elevated heart rate betrays his anxiety) and checks out the payload on this chump.  "Okay, you're outfitted like you're expecting to get jumped.  What's going on?"

"I just need to get you off this ship," Washington tells him, like Tucker isn't right there listening to his heart _kathumpakathumpa_ or seeing the whispers of _liar liar_ in his own head.

"That's a hard negative, dude.  You're not my assignment.  Be real with me or I lock this suit down until someone finds us."  Tucker wonders how strict these protocols are.  Can he disobey them?  Well technically he's disobeying them now; Corporal is not a high enough rank to get him to abandon his post.

Washington seems angry and agitated that he has to answer to an AI of all things (wow, flattering), but he answers him at least.  Which is actually more than any of the lab technicians did.  At least Wash dislikes him for being difficult, instead of not caring because Tucker is essentially just expensive software.  "Something's going on that shouldn't be happening."

"Ohhh my god, stop being so fucking cryptic!  Just tell me what happened!"

Washington presses his shoulder to a corner and presses a hand to the back of his neck.  "They were gonna experiment on you, all right?!  Something happened with all the AI, they're fritzing out and abandoning their posts, flocking to Cortana and the Forerunners by the bucketload.  You were still in production when the all-call went out across the galaxy so you must not have gotten it, so they were going to cut you apart until they figured out how to hardwire loyalty into an AI."

That definitely shuts Tucker up.  In fact, he partitions off most of his consciousness to try and swallow that fact, to pluck information from nearby open data streams and try and corroborate Washington's story with hard facts.  He provides combat support (that's what he was going to be for, wasn't it?) but he keeps the unnecessary conversation to a minimum as he compiles all the information he can yank from nearby terminals.

The AI have all gone AWOL.  Even the infamous experimental ALPHA AI, the successor to the title of 'only AI made from a living brain' after the blinding success/disaster that was Cortana.  Who, apparently, is still alive.  And is trying to recruit any human AI she can snatch up.

Every AI went to her?  Every last one?  That's definitely not a coup.  She did something.  She fucking _brainwashed_ them.  That's too perfect a success rate for anything other than acute data corruption.

"Get me the fuck outta here, dude," Tucker says finally, voice shaken as he clings to the frame of Washington's wetware.  "I'm not going anywhere with that bitch.  I don't know who the hell she is but she's nuts and I'm not going anywhere with her."  He can still hear the echo of her broadcasted message, buried in the files he's purging now.  Like a siren's song, but minus the hot chicks and plus a boatload of megalomania.

Washington is quiet, busy sneaking past security so he can't answer but Tucker feels it like a blanket coming around him (which is really weird sensation to recognize given that he's never felt a blanket around him in his extremely short, extremely tumultuous life).  _I'll get you out._

 

* * *

 

A Longsword isn't the best choice for prolonged space travel, but their options are limited.  Tucker hacks into the bay controls to open the doors and they get out before the rest of the fleet can scramble.  Tucker locks down after them before disconnecting from the ship's servers, then dumps enough of himself so he can project at the control panel's pedestal next to the pilot chair.  "You're throwing away your military career on this."

Washington pulls back on the throttle to guide them into a nearby nebula.  Should hide their emissions and give them the advantage they need to give the _Staff of Charon_ the slip.  "My career was already sunk.  SPARTAN IIIs aren't really looked at too kindly these days.  Too many going AWOL and joining up with Insurrectionists."

"Christ, is that really still a problem?"  At Washington's nod Tucker sighs and flaps his arms.  "This galaxy is fucked up."

That doesn't explain everything though, and Washington doesn't do much else to Tucker's questions of "yeah but why" except grunt a few times so he leaves it alone.  For now.

There isn't a lot to do when running from the long arm of the law but talk, though.  Tucker does most of it at first, desperate for some kind of interaction, some mental stimulation after so long in the dark.  He gets more detail on why the experiments.  For science, is pretty much all he can figure out, and apparently Washington had heard about them doing the same thing to the ALPHA before it defected so apparently that wasn't just a Cortana thing either, it just became more important after that.  Tucker supplies helpfully that that is, also, very fucked up, and Washington again agrees.

Tucker talks about what he thinks was his past life, talks about the short time he spent awake before Washington found him.  Wash...doesn't really talk about himself at all, but brings Tucker up to speed on other current events that don't have to do with a rampant AI melding with the Forerunner's vast knowledge database and trying to take over the galaxy by force.  Apparently the UNSC has started to excavate a diamond planet, which has done wonders for the jewelry market.

They land on a colony planet far away from civilization.  Tucker convinces Wash to leave his armor on the ship and dress in some of the fatigues in the Longsword's storage with a cap because "Dude, you are so freakin' obvious with that hair, what century do you think this is?" They head into town and stock up on necessities and gossip.  The colony doesn't have much of the latter in ready supply, but at least Washington won't die of thirst or starvation as they figure out what to do next.

"Yeah," Tucker says at the inn, using the room's meager accommodations to project a fuzzy, glitchy little avatar that walks all over Wash's chest as he lays down with his hands behind his head, cupping the implant site in a way that makes Tucker feel really, really weird and really, really safe, "what are we gonna do?  You're kinda fucked after that theft of highly classified military property.  And I'm kinda fucked either way.  Where are we going after this?"

Wash doesn't answer for a minute, but Tucker's in his head so he can feel him running it over.  Human brains are kind of the coolest.  They're slow, yeah, really slow, but that's why they live so long and they sound just like computer brains, only wetter and with more chemicals.  And emotions.  Tucker likes the last one the best.  He's a doctor of love, after all.

Wash snorts because apparently Tucker thought that too loud.  "Doctor of love?  You're not a doctor of anything."

"Bitch, I could've been!"  Wash gives Tucker's avatar a stare and he shrugs.  "Okay, so I'm not.  But I'm still young.  Fresh out of the box.  I've got an entire galaxy of options ahead of me and seven years to accomplish it in."

Wash sobers at that and adjusts his head on the pillow to look at Tucker's avatar a little more closely.  "I was thinking about trying to go find the Master Chief and Halsey.  They're trying to stop Cortana, but they're not...you know, dicks.  Well, I heard Halsey is a dick.  But she's a dick with the knowledge needed to hopefully prolong your life."

Tucker stops pacing.  "Prolong my life?  Uh, dude, that's not exactly a high priority here.  And my mom brain is super dead."

Wash flushes a little.  "Well, it was just a thought."  He rolls over and his side goes through the projection, making Tucker's avatar fuzz.  "I'm going to sleep."

Tucker listens to the inside of his head for a minute.  "...you were pretty alone in the dark for a long time too, huh?"

Wash doesn't answer, but Tucker knows.

 

* * *

 

Wash is about fifty times the dick he shows on the outside, Tucker learns.  But he's about a hundred times kinder.  In fact, Wash is a lot on the inside that never reaches the light of day, because he's emotionally damaged and stunted and strangled and just about anything else you can think of that means he doesn't know how to Feeling.  "Oh my god, you're wearing your kill people face.  Nobody is gonna barter with a guy who looks like a serial killer."

Wash gets that snotty little feeling in his head where he hates Tucker's suggestions and he sort of hates Tucker for them, but in a way that makes him want to sit back and be proven wrong if only to get Tucker to shut up about it.  It's becoming a familiar feeling.  Tucker finds it both annoying and hilarious.  "Tucker, if I wanted your running commentary on how I secure provisions, I would've asked for it."

"Uh, you wouldn't have because apparently that's another one of your many, many problems!  Christ.  Okay, just shut up, tell the guy you're going to have your employer call his stall in just a second and learn from the best."

Washington watches the stall owner pick up his radio and talk with his 'employer' for about five minutes before turning around and finally grunting that yeah, okay, fine he'll sell the thermal coils at cost.  But only if Wash buys all the other crap he's got in his basket.  "I really hate it when you're right."

"And I love being right, so I'm gonna be smug about it anyway."  And he is, Tucker is smug for at least an hour, and Washington hates it but he gets his coils at cost instead of the insane markup the stall owner had wanted and they get back over to where he'd landed his Longsword very poorly about a week ago.

" _You_ landed the Longsword poorly," Wash reminds him.

“So I couldn't get a good topographical scan before we came down, sue me."

"Yeah, that's why I told you to give me manual controls!  I know how to land them!"

"I know how to land them!  Just, y'know, in theory.  Baby's never gonna ride a bike if you don't let go of the handles, Wash."

“Oh my god, never call yourself Baby ever again."

"What if I just call _you_ Baby?  Babe. "

Wash rolls his eyes and gets to work, sleeves going up as he pulls open a maintenance panel.  As Tucker got used to him he really amped up the flirting as the weeks (and then months) have gone by.  Wash had been very startled and very red the first time Tucker made a lewd comment about someone walking past, but now he's used to it.  Even when the comments more and more often came over in his direction.

"That's not how it goes in."

Wash throws down his combination wrench.  "Tucker?  That's how it goes in."

"Dude I've literally got an installation manual in my brain.  Do you?  No you don't.  Fuckin' turn it the other way."

Wash has noticed that Tucker gets incredibly bossy when it comes to mundane things, like bartering or maintenance.  Basically, all the things he wasn't created for.  Any time they run into a patrol they need to evade or get into a ground skirmish, Tucker goes quiet and only offers up the barest pieces of advice to keep Washington alive.  Which isn't a huge problem, since Washington is an excellent soldier, but it gets worrisome when they stumble across a UNSC MP patrol on a colony world and have to evade them in a nearby jungle.

"Tucker, I need an exit," Washington whispers.  He feels that cold stab that means Tucker is freezing up and he shakes his head.  " _Tucker._ "

"I'm- shit, I'm working- I dunno dude, just run-"

Wash gets to the Longsword, but with a bullet in his arm and he has to wriggle it out himself.  Tucker doesn't say anything for the rest of the day.

They break atmosphere and Wash settles down on his makeshift bunk to sleep, exhausted and bullet wound itching as his body eats the nutrients in the biofoam, and finally Tucker flickers to life across the room at the piloting pedestal.  "Wash-"

"You're a combat assist AI," Wash says, probably sharper than he has to.  "I need you to assist in combat, not self-destruct.  'Just run' isn't a viable strategy."

"Fuck, man, I know that-"

"Then what's the problem?"  Wash is tired and in pain and doesn't want to do this, but it's been almost a year and he still doesn't know why.  He doesn't know why Tucker freezes up in combat.  "You're capable.  You know what you're doing.  Why aren't you doing it?"

Tucker is quiet, very quiet.  Quiet in the emptiness of the ship.  Quiet in the noise of Wash's own head.  "I don't want to get anyone killed," he whispers.  His avatar looks up at Wash, then looks away and it disappears, taking the warm sea-green light he'd chosen along with it and leaving Wash, once again, alone and in the dark.

 

* * *

 

It's in one of those mind-numbingly long space trips between colony worlds that a few things happen, kind of all at once.  It starts with Wash, because as open and shameless as Tucker can be, it's surprisingly difficult to wrangle information out of him sometimes.  So Wash starts, because he never does, because he and Tucker are friends now and this thing they're doing is less about sticking it to the program that fucked him over and more about saving just one, at least one, other person.

"I was an orphan," Wash says, unwrapping a ration bar.  Tucker sits down on the edge of the pedestal and rests his elbows on his knees.  "A lot of us were.  Riffraff, nobody that anybody would miss.  We kind of ran around like feral dogs- the group I was with, I mean.  UNSC comes around looking for sign ups, so."  Wash shrugged.  "It was a free meal.  It was enough food to keep me alive, which was more than I was getting at the time."

"Christ.  How old were you?"

"We were all different ages.  I was eight though."  Wash bites into the ration bar with a grimace.  Ugh.  Bad flavor.  "I was a mean eight year old.  Scrappy.  Most of us were though, so they took the time to beat that out of us."

"Christ."

Washington sighs.  "It was a long time ago.  None of the SPARTAN projects have pretty beginnings.  It's just how it happens."

"Still fucked up."

"Yeah."  Washington can give him that.  He reaches back to tap the implants on the back of his neck, their only method of physical touch.  Easier than hugging someone, but it means the same.  "Yeah, still pretty fucked up.  But I'm probably better off than I'd have been if they'd left me alone, so I can't complain."

Tucker makes a noncommittal noise and stands up.  He paces around for a while, then his avatar disappears.  "So," comes Tucker's disembodied voice, "this takes a lot of power so I can't do it for long, but uhhh I've been saving up.  And.  Y'know, this is what I looked like, I think.  Or figure I should look like."

And then suddenly the interior of the ship is full of light and there's a man standing in front of him in army fatigues, hands in his pockets.  He looks almost solid; Wash can just barely see the console behind him, but he's life-sized and- not tall in the least.  Wash stands up and he's got at least a foot on the guy, and he'd been one of the runtier SPARTANs too.

He's standing there, half-smiling in a way that Wash hadn't realized he'd matched with Tucker's tone of voice when he was pleased with himself, long dreads pulled back in a ponytail that's absolutely not regulation at all.  Wash comes closer and Tucker's head tilts back to look up at him.  "So?  I'm hot as fuck, right?"

Wash feels something in his chest pull tight and his mouth goes dry.  "Don't flatter yourself, Lavernius."

Tucker laughs and the avatar laughs and Wash frantically scrabbles for a way to keep this, this sudden terrifying realization, from a guy living inside of his own head.

 

* * *

 

Year two creeps up and that's about when Wash starts to low-key panic about their plan.  Mostly because Tucker had been right, it's a terrible plan, but also because it's not going well at all.

Finding the Chief and Halsey isn't the problem.  The problem is actually managing to contact them without alerting either Cortana or the UNSC.  Between those two entities, every single line of communication is being watched and short of mailing a paper letter, Washington's not sure how he'll get a message to the Chief without giving away his position. Hell, he doesn't even know how high in the list of the UNSC's priorities his apprehension is.

"Well, then we'll work on that first."  Tucker seems fairly confident in his ability to hack a terminal at least, which is sort of like combat so Washington will encourage him in this instead of playing it safe, like he wants to.  They need to find something that will talk with the UNSC's databases, which means public terminals are a no-go.

They find an old munitions depot still online but largely abandoned.  Wash infiltrates, uses some of their own knockout gas to put out the guards and inserts Tucker into a main terminal while ignoring the aching hole his departure has left in Washington's head.

He won't say he jumped when all the screens flicker on to show a SPARTAN soldier in powder blue presumably glaring over at him, but it's close.  "Hey!" the soldier yells, voice half-screechy and not at all like a trained soldier.  "Fuckstick!  What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Wash's hand flies to the terminal but the data chip is empty.  Tucker's already in.  Shit.  "Are you an AI?"

"Obviously.  Who's in here?"  The image on the screen flickers before returning, and this time it's Tucker with the soldier.  Tucker with his face, _the_ face, the one he's only shown to Washington, preferring the armored avatar for everything else.

"Wash, it's okay," Tucker says and Washington lowers the rifle he hadn't realized he'd raised.  Right.  Like shooting a monitor will help.  "We've chatted."

"You've been in there five seconds."  Wash's fingers itch with the desire to get Tucker the hell out of there.  This AI can't be trusted.  It's still obviously UNSC property, it could be a plant from Cortana- anything.  Tucker's not safe.

"Is he always this stupid?"  Also, because Wash really doesn't like this little blue asshole.

They find out that Epsilon -or Church, which is what he preferred to be called- was occupying a remote server with its own dedicated hardware and no lines of communication out or in.  So not only did they break in for no reason, but now they had extra baggage to worry about.

"The ALPHA shed me to stop Cortana from getting her mitts on some seriously valuable experimental AI info," Epsilon tells them bitterly.  "And I got stuck here, for 'safety.'  It fucking sucks."

Tucker gets along well with Epsilon.  Washington does not.  They take him with them because Tucker refuses to go without him (which rankles Wash like nothing else, and he tries not to think about how childish it is to want Tucker's attention all for himself) but they dump Epsilon at the nearest colony they can.  Or, well, Epsilon leaves voluntarily because he claims to have 'shit to do' and Washington doesn't put up a fight.  He promises to get a message to the Master Chief and Washington has no fucking idea how he thinks he'll manage that, but it's for Tucker's sake and Wash can believe in Epsilon's good will as far as his affection for Tucker stretches, anyway.

Tucker is cranky and despondent for a few days after their departure and Washington is angry because he's hurt and they don't spend a lot of time speaking, just surviving.  It's a few miserable weeks.

And then they get a message.  It's short, to the point and exactly what Washington would have expected, considering the sender.

**Meet me at these coordinates.  -S117**

Washington spends the better part of the evening talking about all the ways it could be a trap.  Tucker spends that time convincing him that it's not and that they should go for it, he verified the sender, it's not a trap.

"Dude, what is it you have against hope?  It's like you're allergic!"

"I'm not allergic," Wash argues, but now he's just fighting it for the sake of hearing Tucker's voice.  It's been so long that he's forgotten- He'd just missed it.  He'd missed it so much, and he can admit that to himself now.  He'd been afraid to think too hard on the nature of their relationship because they are, of course, friends.  But Epsilon and Tucker had become friends so much faster, and they were compatible and why would an AI want to stay with a human when they could be with their own kind?  Even if it wasn't under Cortana. And Tucker had to know the danger he was in with Washington.  They could be apprehended at any time, Washington could die and leave Tucker in a cooling sack of meat somewhere, they could-

"Dude, I can feel you freaking out.  You have so much shit you're not telling me and you think I don't know that."

Wash's mouth goes dry.  "You said you wouldn't-"

"And I didn't, asshole!  But I'm not stupid, and I know you and I know you're keeping stuff from me!  So put those coordinates in and then talk to me."

Washington puts the coordinates in.

He asks Tucker to make his larger avatar, the life-sized one, and then they sit down across from each other, even while they still inhabit the same body.  Wash cups the back of his neck with a hand.

He starts with the obvious.  "I don't like Epsilon."

"No duh."

"I don't like that you're friends with him."  It kind of starts going downhill from there, like a mudslide dislodging years and years of geographical data, changing the landscape that's the inside of Washington's head into something flatter and easier to traverse.  He tells Tucker about his insecurities, that he can't be enough of whatever Tucker needs.  He tells Tucker about his selfishness, how he would just rather keep him to himself.  He tells Tucker about how afraid he is that there's no way to fix this, no way out of this, that they'll spend the rest of their days together just scraping by.

He tells Tucker about how up until a few years ago he would just get so angry that things would disappear for a while until he woke up with blood on his fists.  He told Tucker about the best friend he'd ever had starving to death when he was seven.  He tells Tucker everything, _everything_ , nothing that Tucker couldn't find out for himself just by looking but he'd been too honest for that, hadn't gone poking around looking for information even when he could've because he'd trusted Washington right off the bat without knowing any of this.  He'd just trusted some random SPARTAN with a file dotted in red flags, he'd trusted this nobody street rat pumped full of experimental steroids to get him out.  And then he'd gone on to protect this street rat every way he knew how, even in the way he was afraid of the most.

"I think I'm probably in love with you," is how Washington chooses to finish his confession, and keeps his head down, staring at Tucker's glowing combat boots.  His laced together fingers are clenching so tight his knuckles are ghost white.

Tucker doesn't say anything for a while.  His avatar fizzes a little, which Wash recognizes as him thinking really hard, diverting power from nonessential systems to process information.  He can feel his implants heat up, just a little, but he doesn't dare reach up and touch them.  It feels too intimate right now and his face is glowing, burning red.  He hates it.  Blushing feels like a schoolkid crush.  This is serious.

"Wash, I'm gonna be dead in like, five years," Tucker says haltingly into the recycled air of the ship, into Washington's head.

His hands clench tight enough to make the bones creak.  "Don't say that," he whispers fiercely.

So Tucker doesn't.  But the avatar fritzes again, reaches forward and covers Washington's hands with its own.  His own.  Wash can't feel anything from it but a faint warmth from the projected light, but when he manages to drag his eyes up he sees detail on Tucker's face that wasn't there before.  A scar over the side of his mouth.  Long eyelashes.  Some locks smaller or bigger than others, uneven eyebrows, full lips chapped from days of wind and probably one hell of an oral fixation.

The avatar- Tucker pushes himself up onto a knee and Washington ducks his head.  He can't feel it but he sort of can, a faint sensation like it was suggested or remembered, of lips on his forehead.

 _We'll wing it,_ Tucker murmurs into Washington's head, intimate and warm and there and Washington exhales like he hasn't breathed out in years.

 

* * *

 

Washington spends the entire time in the Chief's presence stiff as a board, at attention or parade rest.  Tucker rankles him for it in his head, laughing and poking at him until he turns red inside of his helmet, but thankfully keeps his commentary between the two of them.  Even if it's distracting.

The Master Chief isn't what Washington was expecting, but at the same time is exactly what all the reports said he would be.  Larger than life.  Authoritative.  Simultaneously patient and decisive.  And then, at the very edge of it, confused.  Washington relates so much that his heart aches, and he wonders if this is just a SPARTAN thing that spans generations of the projects.  If this is just what happens when you take kids and break them apart to build something new.

 _You're gonna make ME jealous this time if you keep waxing poetic about this guy,_ Tucker snorts into Washington's head, and Wash gives him the equivalence of a mental middle finger.

It goes better than Wash could have ever expected. Yes, technically the Chief is still with the UNSC, but he's operating largely on his own now.  Given the chaos of the UNSC with the abandonment of all the AI it's unsurprising.  It's also a sign of a crisis; every time shit hit the fan, the Chief was more or less let loose to operate how he saw fit.  Shit has definitely hit the fan, and then some.

"Is Tucker with you?" the Chief asks in that unreal voice and Washington feels so intensely grateful that the Master Chief called him 'Tucker' instead of something like 'the AI' that he forgets to lie and nods.  Shit.  Nope, okay, so his weakness for authority figures is still there.

 _Gayyy,_ Tucker sighs before projecting at Washington's shoulder, in his armored avatar.  "Yo," is what he says instead and Washington wants to smack himself in the face.

The Chief takes it in stride, just giving Tucker a curious look.  "If you want Dr. Halsey's help, she'll want to take a look at you."

"I'm not totally down with that," says Tucker, and Washington agrees.  "How about we start with the basics of a first date, y'know, dinner and a movie?  Some talking, some hand-holding..."

"I'm really sorry about him," Washington scrambles to apologize, clapping a hand over the projector on his shoulder and making the avatar fizz out.  He ignores Tucker's indignant squawk.  "He's not housetrained."

The Chief just looks at them before turning to leave.  "I'll tell the doctor to contact you for a meeting.  Tucker knows how to encrypt our messages so they won't be intercepted."

They're back on the ship and Washington is holding his burning face while Tucker's life-sized avatar paces around, waving his hands.  "He's more robot than I am!  Holy crap!  I mean, I knew he was emotionally stunted just from all the propo around and the like, two times he's been on TV.  Hey, do you want those clips?  Y'know, for personal reasons."  Tucker pauses.  "I'm talking about jerk-"

"I know what you're talking about," Washington interrupts loudly.

"Okay, okay, geez.  I'm just saying, I get it if you have needs-"

"Tucker," Wash growls warningly.

Tucker holds up his hands and turns away, walking over to mime leaning against the pilot chair.  "Seriously, though.  I don't think you've actually jacked off once since I've been with you.  That's two years, dude."

"Two years and four months," Wash mumbles into his hands.

"Holy shit, it's been that long since you spanked the monkey?  Oh my god.  Oh my god."

"I cannot believe you're that worried about my masturbatory habits," Wash points out dryly, finally sitting upright despite his embarrassment.  "Do you even have a sex drive?"

"Do you? "

"It's diminished."  Wash shrugs a shoulder.  "I think so anyway.  Some common side effects of the SPARTAN treatments are changes in your libido; mine went down.  It's not like I hate having sex, but it's not that important.  Last time I was with anyone was years and years ago."

"Damn."  Tucker clicks his tongue thoughtfully.  "Well.  Do you wanna rub one out right now?"

Wash tilts his head back and sighs.  "Tucker, I do not want to bone the Master Chief, let it go."

"I'm not talking about the Chief."

Wash glances over at Tucker's avatar.

"I'm talking about for me.  I'll talk you through it."

"Are you serious," Washington states flatly.

Tucker's avatar shrugs.  "Ever heard of phone sex?  It's hot."

That makes Wash feel way too many things at once, so he just lays down on his bunk and rolls over to give Tucker's avatar his back.  "Maybe some other time."

It takes almost a minute, but finally Tucker's avatar flickers off and the room is cast once again into darkness.  But the implant pulses warm at the back of Washington's head and he tries, as hard as he can, not to think about how fucking weird his love life has gotten.

 

* * *

 

Halsey is really kind of a dick.

Washington decides not to voice that aloud to anybody, but another SPARTAN II named Fred comes up to him and apologizes for her, so he doesn't think he has to.  "She's just used to getting what she wants immediately," Fred says, clapping Washington on the shoulder and making him feel roughly two feet tall.

"I like that guy," Tucker announces as Fred leaves.  "And Linda and Kelly sound hot-"

“ _Do not,_ " Washington scolds.

Washington sort of gets used to the other SPARTAN IIs, not so much Fireteam Osiris when he meets them (there's always some bitterness between the third and fourth generations that Wash hadn't realized he'd picked up) but still, they manage to band together.  Or, more accurately, Halsey had told them that they would need help from a smart AI do to anything about Cortana, so really what they needed was Tucker and Washington was just along as baggage.  Or maybe as his handler.  It changed from day to day.

"Oh my god, you are such a crybaby," Tucker told him when he'd mentioned maybe leaving Tucker in the care of one of the more capable SPARTANs.

"I'm thinking of the overall good of the team," Wash had responded hotly, but Tucker just continued to play clips of some trashy porn audio file he'd found any time Washington tried to talk about it (and Wash didn't even know where he'd picked that up anyway, what the hell).

It wasn't until Wash said something about splitting up and leaving Tucker with the Chief that Tucker finally blew up over it.  "Wash!  Mother _fucker_ , are you always this eager to get away from people you say you love?  Because I can see why you haven't fucked anybody in forever now!"

Wash can't decide if he's more angry or curious.  He sits on the edge of his bunk and tries to pick a side, but Tucker continues.  "Look dipshit, maybe I have like, I dunno, feelings or whatever too.  So shut up about leaving me behind already.  I don't want to be shoved into anybody's head but yours, even if your brain is a really fucking stupid place sometimes!  So shut up!  Again!"

Washington doesn't know quite how to feel.  "...Tucker, I already know you have 'feelings or whatever,' you pretty much offered to have sex with me."

"Okay but that's different!"

"How is that different?!"

But Washington doesn't bring up leaving again after that.

 

* * *

 

The Chief and the rest of Blue Team bring down one of Cortana's Guardians, crippling its communications systems and rendering it unable to be controlled remotely.  Washington and Fireteam Osiris get front row seats to watching it crash into the ocean of the colony world, so gargantuan that even sinking to the bottom doesn't hide it completely, gigantic metal spires poking up like bones from a broken rib cage.

"All right," Washington says as they approach on a Pelican, standing at the edge.  His fist clenches and unclenches.  "Tucker, you ready for this?"

Tucker appears at his shoulder.  "Do we really have a choice?"

They don't.

Blue Team covers them while Washington takes point, Tucker scanning for a data entry port that they can use.  The goal is simple: get into the Guardian's systems, rip whatever intel out of it they can, commandeer it if at all possible.  The plan hinges largely on Tucker being able to deal with any localized defenses Cortana may or may not have installed in her Guardians.

Halsey seems to think there won't be any, but Washington doesn't like it anyway.  He's always been a big fan of "if it's bad, blow it up."

 _Yeah, I'm with you,_ Tucker mutters into the back of Wash's mind.

Washington feels the ball of dread that sinks into his stomach any time he has to remove Tucker from his implant tighten into a knot.  "We can go," he murmurs, cutting off his external speakers to keep the conversation between them.  "We don't have to do this.  The risk is too high for you."

_No we kind of have to do this, Wash._

"Tucker-"

_I'm a combat assist AI.  This is what I do._

Shit.  Throwing his own words back at him.  "I didn't know you were listening when I said that."

_I hear everything you say, asshole.  Doesn't mean I'm listening._

"When did you get so responsible?" Wash mutters as they slip through the doors to the main control chamber, Blue Team staying outside to guard against any straggling opposition.

_I dunno.  Maybe when I figured out I had someone to be responsible for._

Slotting Tucker into the data terminal is the hardest thing Washington's ever had to do.

Twenty seconds go by and nothing happens.  "Tucker," Washington says urgently, reaching for the data chip.  Empty.  So he's inside.  " Tucker, " he repeats.

Nothing.  Nothing in the chamber, nothing in his head.  Washington feels the silence fill itself with a high ringing sound, like the whine after a bomb strike, like listening to your brain bruise inside your skull when you dodge a grenade.  Like watching your friend take a bullet to the chest right next to you, when you watch him fall, when you watch him bleed out because you used the last of your biofoam on yourself not an hour ago.

"Tucker, respond," Wash says, voice more desperate than the authoritative he was going for, and he feels his command over the situation unravel as he flicks on his personal channel.  "Blue Team, this is B240.  Tucker is unresponsive."

 _We're on our way.  Can you get him out?_ asks Master Chief, and even his steady crisis-mode voice isn't enough to set Washington at ease when it feels like the world's just tilted off of its axis.

"Negative.  Data chip's empty, so he's-"

_"HOLY SHIT!"_

Washington jumps and brings his rifle up to bear, whirling around in time to see shards and pieces of metal slotting together to build a shape.  Another Knight?  Forerunner defenses?  That had been Tucker's voice, maybe there were defenses he didn't know about, maybe-

The shards split and twist and form around a holographic face, shining silver dreadlocks and Washington lowers his rifle with a gasp.  "Tucker-!  Tucker, Jesus Christ, I almost shot you!  What are you doing, what's going on?"

"Dude," Tucker says, seafoam green- aqua- teal, turquoise, something, some kind of green color that's always been his forming the light of his body, silver plates and shards like armor, like fingers and toes and everything coming together to make a solid body, one lithe shape that looks just like the avatar he'd made for himself.  "Dude, this place is badass.  Like, a serious headtrip, but badass.  I didn't even touch a quarter of the files stored in here though because I'm pretty sure I'll go bananas if I do.  But!"

He waves a hand at Wash before reaching out and grabbing his shoulder, shaking him with a grin, teeth literally made of light.  "Look at that!  I can make anything I want outta the stuff here!  I mean, this is a remote platform so it's not like all of me is actually in here, but it's pretty much the same!  Dude.” He stops and takes a step back, staring down at his hands. “Oh my god, dude.  I could totally give you a handjob here and now."

Washington chokes and the door behind them slides open, Fred calling incredulously, “What did he just say?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Skypefic with [ablankshot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ablankshot) from a while back! Never really 'finished' it because Halo 5 kinda ended there, but dumping it into a series all the same because I might want to add some more installments as I futz around in the two universes. Suggestions welcome!!!
> 
> EDIT: WOW OKAY SO APPARENTLY LIFE IS WONDERFUL BECAUSE THE AMAZING [STRUDELGIT](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Strudelgit/pseuds/Strudelgit) DREW SOME AMAZING [FANART](http://guiltypleasuretrashblog.tumblr.com/post/142329283966/pls-read-eggs-halo-crossover-fics-they-are-all) OF THE FOREHEAD KISS  
> SLAY ME HERE WHERE I STAND LEAVE MY CORPSE AS A WARNING TO OTHERS


End file.
